This invention relates to a handle structure for a mattress.
A conventional mattress, whether of twin, double, queen or king size, is generally parallelepipedal in form and has top and bottom surfaces and a peripheral wall. The top and bottom and the peripheral wall of the mattress are made of fabric known as tick. A decorative tape is used to bind the seams joining the wall to the top and bottom of the mattress.
It is conventional to attach handles to the wall of the mattress to facilitate lifting and turning of the mattress. A common form of handle is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,248,328 and comprises a flexible cord having a tubular ferrule at each end, each ferrule being provided with a projecting finger or barb. Two grommets are fitted in the mattress wall, about five inches apart and are linked by a backing bar of steel or tough synthetic polymer material. The tubular ferrules are inserted through the grommets respectively and are held in position by the barbs, which hook behind the grommets. The backing bar serves to protect the mattress wall from damage by the barb.
For many years, inner spring and foam mattresses were manufactured with a standard thickness of approximately seven inches. Recently, however, mattresses that are substantially thicker than seven inches, even up to about sixteen inches in thickness, have been manufactured in order to capture the luxury market, which is driven by demand for greater comfort and superior back support. Since the structure of the newer thicker mattress is the same as that of the older standard mattresses, the newer mattress contains much more material and accordingly the newer mattress is much heavier than the older standard mattress. Further, some mattresses are now made of a latex material and a mattress made of latex material can be substantially heavier than an innerspring or foam mattress of the same size and thickness.
The conventional type of handle, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,248,328 functions well with a mattress of the standard thickness and of conventional (innerspring or foam) construction but it may become detached from the wall of a heavier mattress when the mattress is lifted or turned. Further, the cord of the conventional handle tends to dig into the hand of the person lifting or turning the mattress, and in the case of a heavier mattress, this may cause discomfort and even injury.
In order to alleviate the problems of the conventional handle, it has been proposed that a mattress handle should be made from a strap of fabric having two end regions by which the strap is sewn securely to the mattress wall. In a particular instance of this type of handle, the end regions of the strap are square in configuration and each end region is sewn to the mattress wall along all four sides of the square, along the two diagonals and along a line midway between the upper and lower sides of the square. This type of handle, and its manner of attachment, overcome the disadvantages of the conventional handle. However, it has proven impractical to automate the operation by which the handle is placed on the mattress wall and the end regions of the handle are sewn to the mattress wall and therefore it is necessary for an operator to position the strap and guide the sewing machine head along the desired path. Consequently, it is expensive and time consuming to attach the handle to the mattress wall by sewing in accordance with the pattern described above. Moreover, aesthetic considerations necessitate that the fabric of the handle should match the pattern of the mattress wall. A given mattress manufacturer may use a large number of different patterns for mattress walls, and therefore the manufacturer must either keep a large inventory of straps, in which case keeping track of the inventory is difficult, or make the straps concurrently with other components of the mattress, which may be inconvenient. Further, the structure of the strap itself is rather complex, and so it is difficult to make the straps economically.